The Hohe Derst is a hill, 561 metres above sea level, in the Palatine Forest of southwest Germany. It lies within the Wasgau region and is the highest point of the

Mundat Forest The term 'Mundat Forest' refers to two forests that overlie the modern border between Germany and France near Wissembourg, Alsace. The ''Upper Mundat Forest'' is a small part of the mountainous Palatinate Forest. The smaller ''Lower Mundat Fores ...

Location

The Hohe Derst is situated on the territory of the parishes of Böllenborn and Oberotterbach above the hamlet of

Reisdorf Reisdorf () is a commune and small town in eastern Luxembourg, on the river Sauer The Sauer (German and Luxembourgish, , ) or Sûre ( French, ) is a river in Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. A left tributary of the Moselle, its total length ...

, five kilometres east of the town of Bad Bergzabern. The ''

Landesstraße ''Landesstraßen'' (singular: ''Landesstraße'') are roads in Germany and Austria that are, as a rule, the responsibility of the respective German or Austrian federal state. The term may therefore be translated as "state road". They are roads t ...

'' 492 state road runs around the hill to a walkers' car park.

Structures

A military radio-relay tower stands on the Hohe Derst near the '' Ritterstein'' marking the summit. It was originally used by the US Army (Central Army Group - CENTAG) and Air Force

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

, as part of the "Tiger" group of high-frequency radio line-of-sight sites. This was known as "Tiger 24", but they gave it up after the end of the Cold War. It continues to be used by the

Bundeswehr The ''Bundeswehr'' (, meaning literally: ''Federal Defence'') is the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. The ''Bundeswehr'' is divided into a military part (armed forces or ''Streitkräfte'') and a civil part, the military part con ...

. A short way below the summit is a transmission site for the German broadcasters,

Südwestrundfunk Südwestrundfunk (SWR; ''Southwest Broadcasting'') is a regional public broadcasting corporation serving the southwest of Germany , specifically the federal states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. The corporation has main offices ...

, which broadcasts analogue TV to much of the

South Palatinate The Palatinate (german: Pfalz; Palatine German: ''Palz'') is a region of Germany. In the Middle Ages it was known as the Rhenish Palatinate (''Rheinpfalz'') and Lower Palatinate (''Unterpfalz''), which strictly speaking designated only the wes ...

and the Wasgau and which will be switched off with the advent of DVB-T. There were plans to provide transmitters here to broadcast the Rhineland-Palatine programmes, SWR1 Rheinland-Pfalz and SWR4 Rheinland-Pfalz to this region, because they are not able to be received here, but these plans came to nothing. {{SüdlicheWeinstraße-geo-stub Südliche Weinstraße